Stray Hawkeye

I know I’m behind the times on this one, but have you seen the cover for 89.3 The Current’s Live Current Volume 6 CD:

No idea how the music on it is, but with a cover like that, it can't be all bad

As best I can tell, the cover was made by local graphic designer Miss Amy Jo.  The rest of her work seems to be somewhat sousaphone deprived, but I’ll take what I can get.

A co-worker of mine recently pointed out to me that one of the people who is on the offshore team in India for his project has the last name of “Dikshit”.  I of course assumed he was lying as we tend to joke around a lot, but I looked it up in the company directory, and, in deed, there is not one, but around 10 people who work for our company in India (and a couple in the US for that matter), with the last name of “Dikshit”.  I couldn’t help but think of this scene from Spaceballs:

One can imagine a similar scene set at a corporate headquarters (no so different from Dark Helmet’s spaceship after all) with the following unfolding on an IT project:

DARK PROJECT MANAGER

Careful, you idiot. I said update the record in the database, not overwrite it!

CODER

Sorry, sir.  Doing my best.

DARK PROJECT MANAGER

Who made that man a coder?

SYSTEM ARCHITECT

I did, sir. He’s my cousin.

DARK PROJECT MANAGER

Who is he?

COL BUSINESS ANALYST

He’s a Dikshit, sir.

DARK PROJECT MANAGER

I know that. What’s his name?

COL BUSINESS ANALYST

That is his name, sir. Dikshit, Bhanuprakash Dikshit.

DARK PROJECT MANAGER

And his cousin?

COL BUSINESS ANALYST

He’s a Dikshit, too, sir. Software Engineer, Team Lead, Philip Dikshit.

DARK PROJECT MANAGER

How many Dikshits we got on this project, anyhow?
(Everyone attempt to talk at once on the conference call to say “Yes sir, I am one as well as he already.”)

Pretty sure that script is waaaayyyy funnier in my head.

Tuba Christmas in the Twin Cities this year will be held December 12, at 4:00 p.m. at Central Presbyterian Church, 500 Cedar St., St. Paul. Admission and parking are free. What’s Tuba Christmas? Why would I want to go? Can I play there? How can I get more details? See my previous post on the subject from two years ago – all the details are the same except that it’s on the 12th this year rather than the 14th.

In case you’re having a hard time getting too excited about the Iowa vs Minnesota game this weekend, you’re not alone.  The Gophers have been horrible and even fired their head coach half way through the season (a danger here in Minnesota apparently).  The Hawkeyes, though bowl eligible (my goal for every year) and not a bad season, have been a bit disappointing given the expectations coming into the season, which was basically to go to the national championship game, and as it stands a BCS game is pretty well out of the question, by a fair margin.  Beyond that, (knocking on wood until my knuckles bleed) it’s a reasonably safe bet we know how the game will turn out, we hope.  Minnesota has no chance of a bowl game.  Iowa more or less knows where it’s going as much as one ever can until they announce it.  It’s right after Thanksgiving.  And it’s going to be outside and cold.  And basically every other Big Ten game is of more consequence.

So, now that I’ve got you sufficiently hyped up, there are at least two points of interest for the game.

Iowa has shut out Minnesota back to back the last two years (55-0 and 12-0), which has only happened once before (1955-1956) in the series.  So if they do it again, it’s a first (and great salt to pour in the wound).

The other thing is, it’s the 75th anniversary of Floyd of Rosedale.  Who is Floyd of Rosedale you ask?   Only the best rivalry trophy in college football:

Floyd, right where he belongs

I may be a bit biased in saying a 98 pound bronze statue of pig is the best college football trophy, but really, the story behind it is about as good as they come.  MPR has a great recounting of the origins of the trophy (which admittedly I’ve pointed out before, but it’s worth the repost).  Totally worth the read.

If there’s a better back story for any trophy in college football, I’d love to hear it.  I mean really, compare that to the Heartland Trophy – a statue of a bull with a giant head it can’t lift off the ground (why a bull?  who knows!) that Iowa and Wisconsin have played for since the distant history of… 2004, when someone said, hey, this is a always a good game and an incredibly even rivalry, there should be a trophy for this.  A rivalry so bitter in fact that a former Iowa player with a Tigerhawk tattoo is the head coach at Wisconsin and feelings have gotten so harsh they’ve decided to suspend the rivalry for at least two years because the new divisions resulting form the Big Ten conference expansion suck so bad to let things cool off.

So, happy birthday Floyd.  And Go Hawks.

Um, wow, just wow.  I just saw a commercial for an Obama Chia Pet.  The actual one I saw was the second half of the one on the actual Chia Obama website, but the concept was pretty similar to this one (the first half of the video on the site):

Note if you look at the website, they also have a Chia Lincoln, Chia Washington, and Chia Statue of Liberty.

I don’t know what to say, other than just… wow.

I was at Walgreens a couple of days ago and saw this sitting by the checkout counter, the Christmas tree from A Charlie Brown Christmas for $10:

Mass produced replica of endearingly hand made Christmas tree

My first reaction was that it was the coolest thing ever, the perfect tiny tree for my tiny apartment, and an awesome use of 10 dollars.  But about a second later before I could even reach to pick it up, something stuck me as weird about buying a store made Charlie Brown Christmas tree.  I couldn’t remember exactly how the show went, but as best I remembered, the whole point of the show was focusing on the hand-made, endearing crappy-ness of the tree.  So, it being the future now, I came home and looked up a clip of the show on youtube thinking I could always go back and buy the tree if it warmed my heart after watching the show.  Here’s what I found:

Yeah, think I’m okay with not buying one.

Previous episodes of my childhood favorites being slow destroyed by remakes, updates, etc here (Transformers) and here (Legos).